Per CTV:
The trademark curly hair is still there, thick on top and long in the back, same as when Jaromir Jagr was one of the NHL’s top players and a central figure on the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Stanley Cup championship teams of the Mario Lemieux era.
Jagr always marched to the beat of a different drum, and for proof one needs look no further than his decision two years ago to leave New York to play hockey in Siberia. At 38 (Jagr celebrates his birthday todayMonday) and having ceded his place at the highest levels of hockey to Alexander Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby, these games on behalf of the Czech Republic at the 2010 Olympics may well be his North American swan song.
Of course, with Jagr, you never know. He wouldn’t rule out a return to the NHL next year under the right circumstances, and if he does, he probably wouldn’t rule out Edmonton as a possible destination, even if the Oilers are in danger of finishing with the NHL’s worst record this season.
The Oilers courted him long and hard before he went to play for the KHL’s Avangard Omsk, the team that gave him a home during the NHL lockout. As luck or circumstance would have it, two of Jagr’s most recent coaches – Tom Renney, who had him in New York, and Wayne Fleming, who coached him in Russia – are both assistants on Pat Quinn’s staff with the Oilers. And if Siberia’s climate doesn’t scare Jagr, Edmonton’s likely wouldn’t either.
Jagr’s Russian contract expires in three months, and at that point he will decide what to do next. Retirement doesn’t sound as if it’s an option; he looks healthy and motivated to show that he can still play at a relatively high level, beginning Wednesday when the Czechs play their opener against rival Slovakia. Next Sunday,feb21 they will meet Russia in a rematch of the Nagano final, when the Czechs unexpectedly won gold in the NHL’s first full Olympic venture.
The captain of that team, Vladimir Ruzicka, is now the Czech coach, and Jagr is the only remaining player.
“When you look at the stats, we are not [the favourites],” Jagr said of the 2010 challenge. “But if you’re going to ask any player from our team, ‘Can we win gold?’ me or any other player is going to tell you, ‘Yes, we have a chance.’ It would be bad if we said the opposite because if you don’t believe in yourself, you shouldn’t be here. That’s the bottom line.
“If you’re going to play 10 times against Canada, maximum you are going to beat them is maybe once or twice,” Jagr added. “But maybe it might be this time. You never know.”
Twelve years ago, Jagr was the Czech Republic’s premier player and in the midst of an unprecedented run in which he won five out of seven NHL scoring titles. In a 21-year span between 1981 and 2001, Jagr was the only player not named Lemieux or Gretzky to top the NHL in scoring. He will be a first-ballot Hall of Famer when he retires, but says these Olympics will be different than ones past, where so much of the pressure was on him to provide the scoring.
“Right now,” he said, “I haven’t played in the NHL for two years. Nobody is expecting anything. That’s a big advantage for me.”
Jagr has no regrets about leaving the NHL.
“You can say, oh, if I would stay here, it would be good, but you don’t know that. Maybe it would be very bad. You never know. That’s why you should never look back, you just go forward.”
